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Lot 59
Josiah Emery, London. A very fine and possibly unique gilt brass and shagreen calendar timepieceUnnumbered, Last quarter 18th century
12 June 2012, 13:00 EDT
Los AngelesSold for US$10,625 inc. premium
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Josiah Emery, London. A very fine and possibly unique gilt brass and shagreen calendar timepiece
Unnumbered, Last quarter 18th century
Circular gilt full plate movement with four baluster pillars, chain fusee, verge escapement, plain three arm brass balance, cock and adjacent backplate furniture finely pierced and engraved with foliate scrolls and grotesque mask, diamond endstone in blued setting, white enamel dial secured by four polished screws, with outer minute ring divided in 15-second intervals, enclosing subsidiary roman chapter ring and three calendar dials for day, date and month, blued spade hour hand, the remaining hands baluster form, cylindrical glazed gilt case with shagreen around the band, concave molded base enhanced with rope twist border raised on three gilt bun feet, glazed bottom panel with winding aperture and paddle form shutter. 94mm
Circular gilt full plate movement with four baluster pillars, chain fusee, verge escapement, plain three arm brass balance, cock and adjacent backplate furniture finely pierced and engraved with foliate scrolls and grotesque mask, diamond endstone in blued setting, white enamel dial secured by four polished screws, with outer minute ring divided in 15-second intervals, enclosing subsidiary roman chapter ring and three calendar dials for day, date and month, blued spade hour hand, the remaining hands baluster form, cylindrical glazed gilt case with shagreen around the band, concave molded base enhanced with rope twist border raised on three gilt bun feet, glazed bottom panel with winding aperture and paddle form shutter. 94mm
Footnotes
This unusual timepiece by Josiah Emery (1725 – 1794), a Swiss who settled in London in the early 1760's, bears a passing resemblance to early marine time keepers. It reflects both the fine workmanship of his other surviving timepieces and his acquaintance with other English pioneers of precision, notably Mudge, Arnold and Earnshaw. His work on the development of precision timekeepers has been extensively reviewed by Jonathan Betts who notes that while Emery devoted much time and effort to the development of the detached lever escapement and also submitted timekeepers to the Board of Longitude, his workshop continued to produce watches with more conventional escapements. The fine finishing to the movement of the present example, as well as the design of the dial and hands are characteristic of his work.
See: Betts, Jonathan. Josiah Emery, Watchmaker of Charing Cross. Part 1. Antiquarian Horology, v. XXII, no. 5, 1996. pp 394-401, and in subsequent articles.